Astronomy Disasters ?

[GrahamL]

After reading of Daves recent traumatic experiance..I was thinking there must be a few others lurking in the shadows that need revealing :)


Mine are pretty mundane so far .. though I do seem to keep picking on my pretoria eyepice I bought off a member here ... dropping it in the dark into an open car and have it clunk and thump its way out to go rolling across the ground once ...the upper groups locking ring has come loose on me before so I dissmantled it to clean and retighten and for some reason decided to drop the the biggest lens over the tiled bathroom floor ..juggling it as it headed down I finally lost it about a foot above to have it land on its edge bounce and land safley on a bath mat:whistle:



Whats yours ?

[RB]

My only disaster was that I picked up an astronomy magazine, a few years back, to read.
It's cost me a fortune.

:whistle:

[AdrianF]

I also bought a $10 mag a year ago and so far its cost me $4000 and climbing

Adrian

[astroron]

My most painful disaster was dropping a type 1 13mm Nagler on my toe and breaking it (my toe that is):o
Ron

[erick]

That's a relief, I was worried about that Nagler! :o

[erick]

Nearly??

Trying to lift the OTA off the dob base, having only released the friction spring on my side and forgetting the other. Interesting holding the 12" tube unit under one arm while trying to disentange a dangling base with the other. Duuuuuh!

[jjjnettie]

My worst experience
One evening, walking out to the shed where I keep my scope, it was a very dark clear night, I was looking up, as you do, trying to judge the seeing, when I tripped over a coiled up hose. I landed knee first on the edge of a concrete step. I spent the next few days using a granny walker to get around, then graduated to crutches which I had to use for a few weeks.
It was during this time that I hobbled out to the front paddock, got into my snug warm sleeping bag ready to watch (I think) the Geminid meteor shower . I rolled over to get more comfy, and couldn't stop myself, I kept rolling down the hill till I ran into the electric fence.

[astroron]

After that one Jeanette:sadeyes:, my effort is so puny;)
I think I should withraw it:rofl::rofl::rofl:
Ron

[xelasnave]

I had the old 300d fall from the scope fortunately it bounced using the spring loading in the pop up flash unit... it happened the one time I did not tie my little safety "string" ....ruff but prevents nasties.
alex

[Ric]

None as yet and I hope to keep it that way, touch wood. (said whilst patting my head):lol:

[batema]

Our schools C8 rolled from the back seat of my Navara and fell to the ground. After it was put in and I was at the back of the car I heard the bang. Its amazing all the things you think that noise could have been before accepting what you already new. Bent the view finder a little but I think may have fixed our collumation problem.

Mark

[Jen]

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
sorry Jeanette but im really laughing my head off reading this thread :lol:
I hope it didnt hurt too much :thumbsup:

[Jen]

:) oh yes the memories are all coming back to me ;)
now well if it wasnt for my mishap i wouldnt have found you guys thanks to :google::D:thumbsup:
check out my FIRST post on IIS :D:rofl::rofl:

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=28992 (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=28992)

WEEK 3 OMG U know that lovely husband of mine that bought me the scope well he dropped it :eyepop::mad2::mad2::mad2: he lucky to still be alive thank god the mirror or none of the lenses smashed but he put a big dint in the tube :sadeyes:where the finderscope must of hit the ground I WAS NEALLY IN TEARS so off to the panel beaters we go to get the dint out of the tube :shrug: and thats when i found you guys :D i was trying to see what to do or how to fix this :screwy:
:tasdevil::tasdevil::tasdevil:

[AstralTraveller]

Oh dear ... that is a disaster. :D:whistle: Oops, I think I'm in trouble.... :scared3:

[erick]

:rofl:

But giving me an idea for my C8! :D

[jjjnettie]

The sleeping bag incident.... I was alternating between swearing and laughing when it happened. Stupid thing to happen. My poor knee getting knocked around again. So glad I didn't get tangled up in the electric tape though.

[MrB]

Hehe, sorry but I was laughing hard at that too.
The knee though.... ouch!

[leon]

JJJ, I love it that is funny I can just picture you rolling down the hill hog tied in that sleeping bag. :lol: :lol:


Leon :thumbsup:

[RB]

:rofl:
You're a legend jjj !!!! :lol:

[Jen]

Hey you :poke::poke::poke:
(jen chases Astral around the room) :lol:
you have been a very very bad boy now go to my room :rofl::rofl:
:evil2::evil2:

[GrahamL]

:thumbsup:... well thats a pretty special effort jjj.. I'm with Ron and am not worthy in the presence of such royalty :lol:

what did the horses make of all this btw ???

[BerrieK]

jj you are funny. Lucky you didn't roll through a pile of horse poo on the way to the bottom (dont mind the pun) of the hill!

[Galactic G]

I had an astronomy disaster last night.

I'd forgotten I had my favourite pair of binos sitting on the edge of my dobson base. In the wee hours of this morning when I picked up the dob base to take it inside I got right across the back lawn, on to the concrete path, before my binos decided to leap to their doom.

*CRASH**CLINK**RATTLE*

I swore.:(

R.I.P. (Rest in Pieces) binos.

I'd had them for more than 10 years. They were great binos.

[jjjnettie]

Commiserations on your loss.
Did you lose both sides of the binos?
If not, all is not lost as you now have an excellent new finder scope.

[Galactic G]

Cracked the EP surround on one side, and looks/sounds like I've broken one of the prisms on the other side.

Hmmm, I hadn't thought about it like that.

[erick]

Get the hacksaw out! :D

[wasyoungonce]

One of my dogs has taken a liking to my scope data and power leads...chewed the lot he did:mad2:!.....mutter mutter mutter

[Smirnoff]

for some reason, my cats very much enjoy urinating on the base of my 10" dob.

[TrevorW]

That would have been a shocking experience :thumbsup:

[TrevorW]

Can I come too :D

[wasyoungonce]

That's funny...they think it is worth peeing on...as opposed to it isn't!:lol:

[Jen]

:eyepop::eyepop: oh no poor binos :sadeyes: well i guess its time you bought yourself a belated xmas present :lol:

[Jen]

:lol::lol::lol:
sure ;)
:evil2::evil2:

:wink2:

[GrahamL]

Thats a shame :(.. dob bases can be a magnet for problems .. My latest.. regards ye old fan to battery conection .. forgetting about the fan I pick up the mirror box and walk off tearing the wires off the back of the fan as the battery sits in the bottom of the rocker box .. twice in a row !!

Third time I gave it some forthought as I was lugging out the mirror box
though strangley while passing the wifes bedisde drawer a I noticed
a familar sound I couldn't quite place .. but didn't give it any thought... It was the slightly dangling fan wires that decided to catch themselves in the slightly open drawer and once again rip the wires off the back of the fan .. hatrick :)
At least the last time I was looking for the suckers ...though they still wern't there :)

[Tinker]

Had a disaster recently. Received a new EQ6 mount, never owned a GEM before, and hastily set it up to try it out with my refractor.

I was thinking this didnt take long to set up, I'll try a polar alignment!

Slewed the mount and bang, refractor upside down saying hello to the tripod legs. :eyepop:You guessed it, forgot in my haste to add the big white heavy weights to the other end of the mount.

Broke the focusser, but after after a bit of fiddling it kind of works ok now. A good lesson learnt!

[Jen]

:eyepop::eyepop: Tinker i felt your pain when i read that awwwwwww but one day when i get a EQ6 mount :D i will remember that thanks cheers :thumbsup:

[Kevnool]

Not much reallt except drive out to an observing site.
Set up , collimate , 2 star alignment then i,ll think about looking into the galactic centre and no i,ll give that a miss as i didnt put the step ladder in to get to the eyepiece at zenith.Ohh well no observations around zenith.
Cheers Kev.